My Thoughts and Choices Sculpt My Body

As I and those around me age, I’m seeing a very interesting reality. Our thoughts, choices and reactions to our lives permanently chisel grooves and lines into our faces and bodies. Like a journal of our journey, our path is revealed in our appearance. Think about the saying, “They’ve been rode hard and put up wet.” This is a universal reality of the human life; our bodies reflect our choices.

I Sculpt My Own Creation

Though physical scars can mark us, our countenance, for the most part, is a reflection of our thoughts and choices. Additionally, I have learned that it isn’t what happens to us that molds our faces, but how we respond to it, and then the actions we take in response to those circumstances. It isn’t immediate, but over time our appearance tells our tale. For instance, if someone lived his life in perpetual anger and scorn, his inner scowl would eventually be engraved into that his face. Or another example, a bitter individual would end up with bitterness wracking the body and permeating their expression. All the makeup in the world can’t cover up a bitter soul.

This is the negative side of deadly thoughts. But there is a positive side—Christ. I work with a person whose countenance and appearance is Christ’s. Life beams forth and radiates from her entire body. Yes, Martha Kilpatrick is one of the ones in whom I see Jesus’ smile, glow, and Life. Her life choices have transformed her frame into a beacon of Life and Light. And this is the case for every one of us. When we choose Christ, we are Light. And when we don’t, well, we aren’t. We can see this in the scripture, Luke 11:36. We are supposed to illumine the world about us.

If then your entire body is illuminated, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright [with Light], as when a lamp with its bright rays gives you light.
Luke 11:36 AMPC

Thoughts, Choices, and Sculpting My Body

Here is some additional good news. Even if we have chosen a life of destructive thoughts, Christ can still shine and transform us when we choose Him. I know a man who was transitioning to become a woman. He lived his life essentially as a female. He worked in Washington, DC as a female secretary and had even started the hormone therapy to set himself up for the surgery to make his choice a more permanent actuality. Then Christ came into his life. He was delivered and set free. Though he had to recover from the hormone yo-yo job he had elected to inflict upon himself, he soon began to reflect Christ’s countenance.

My friend still bears some marks of his past life choices, but I believe this is the Lord’s choice to make evident His amazing victory. Sy Rogers is wondrously whole now in God’s definition of wholeness and Christ radiates from him.

Many people walk around us and carry the consequences of not choosing Christ. They are marked indelibly with the furrowed lines of their inward life. Angry scowls eventually become permanent in our faces. You remember when your mother would tell you not to cross your eyes because they would stick that way? Well, the reality of that statement has further reaching implications. The only actual permanent freezing of the face happens when our inner life leaves its mark on our outer frame.